Many individual suffer from some form of psychological or psychiatric problem. Few of these individuals will seek professional help, and those that do, face many obstacles. One such obstacle is communication between the individual sufferer and the mental health professional. Typically, the individual seeking help will be asked a series of questions about the person's thoughts and feelings. These questions will be presented either on a paper questionnaire or will be asked by a staff member who will record the responses offered. The mental health provider will then process the answers received, in order to paint a picture of the individual's mental health state. From this picture, the provider will make a diagnosis and thereafter will prescribe a course of treatment. This mental provider-consumer communication suffers twin short-comings.
An individual suffering from a mental health affliction may not be able to express thoughts and feelings through questions and answers. The individual may know what he or she is thinking or feeling but may not be able to express this verbally. Or the person may find such question cold and intrusive and may not wish to answer them, and may offer any answer just to be left alone.
The result is a communication breakdown with the message sent from consumer to provider being blocked or distorted. A course of treatment will be difficult to embark upon and if it is embarked upon, it will be distorted.
A second problem results in interpretation of the resulting answers by the provider. Even if the individual clearly answered all questions, the provider will require a frame work or criteria in order to assemble a mental health picture of the individual. Any picture so assembled will not necessarily be complete. Holes in the picture will be filled in during the course of treatment resulting in a refinement of the treatment as more of the picture comes into view. Such a course will not be an efficient use of resources and can even be counter-productive.
What is needed is an apparatus that will permit an individual to express his or her thoughts and feelings without the necessity of resorting to verbal semantics. Such an apparatus must permit effective communication and must be relatively simple to use. Further more, such an apparatus must permit the mental health provider to make a comprehensive diagnosis and evaluation of a persons mental health state quickly so that an appropriate course of treatment may be commenced.